Not Tired Yet
by Mostly Harmless III
Summary: [yaoi] WolfwoodxMidvalley. Midvalley can't sleep and Wolfwood needs music, and maybe something else. In homage to music and nighttime.


Author Note: Many thanks to Yrael for the awesome beta! How cool are you? I've never written this pairing before.  
  
*****  
  
Nicholas D. Wolfwood was snoring, which was reminiscent of the sound of a sandsteamer careening unchecked into a Plant Bulb. The bed was no luxury item either. It creaked with every movement and dipped alarmingly downwards, making the floorboards give a moan. Snore, creak, moan, creak, creak, moan, snore. It was a cacophony Midvalley could just as soon do without. Why he hadn't thrown the "priest" out was as much a mystery to him as it had been every other time before. Lord knows he was tired of jostling him awake to stop the noise. Lord knows.  
  
Occasionally, it all stopped and the imperfect melody he strained to hear was there again--though the snoring started up soon enough, making him cringe and mutter a curse. It was a rather half-hearted curse because he could still sense it, after all: underneath all the racket of Wolfwood snoring and tossing from nightmares, there was night.  
  
Night sounded different than day. The way that color darkened at dusk, sound became heavier, more meaningful. A sonata played beneath the moonlight while standing atop craggy mountains was the glowing realization of the music. At that moment, it was as if the world could achieve no greater thing. Just this, the creation of sound headier than youth and more crushing than death. Daylight made it pale and worthless. Night made it shine.  
  
Wolfwood didn't make music, didn't understand music, seemed not to have it anywhere inside him. And he knew that when Wolfwood slept, ballads didn't flood his dreams. Demons and terrors had taken up the task instead; occupying space that should have been filled with rhythm and harmony. Wolfwood's eyes looked like he needed music. There seemed to be a sliver of light missing from his eye that needed filling with something vast and important. In fact, it seemed that Wolfwood's soul was as parched for music as this godforsaken planet was parched for water.  
  
He looked down at Wolfwood, who had fallen silent again, and let his hand hover just above his skin, not touching, just traveling over skin without the sensation. He followed the line made by his neck connecting to his shoulder and then his arm flowing into hip and then thigh and back again. Wolfwood rolled onto his back suddenly and said something that sounded like "no more."  
  
Midvalley's hand fell back into his lap and stayed there, unfulfilled of touch but still tingling from what it had not felt.  
  
This time, the silence lasted. Whatever demons haunted Wolfwood had called it quits for the night and taken the snores with them. Now he was confronted with night's music and he could honestly believe that he alone was audience to the performance of sand drifting--first a whisper and then a crescendo of gales and gusts.  
  
He tried to savor it for a minute, fidgeted and looked down once more at the sleeping man beside him. Wolfwood was perfectly still and even his breathing seemed even now, his bare chest hardly moving with the inhale, exhale pattern. Night was still there with its swirling sand, and he could almost hear the moonlight, as silly as it might sound to others. Night's music had never been so clear to him. There were patterns and movements in the footsteps of creatures and the skittering of debris over dunes.  
  
But now, it was eerie. There were no creaks or snores, no unintelligible pleas for peace and an end of pain. He should have rejoiced at having night offered to him without interference, yet suddenly, the pure melody brought by the absence of daylight seemed unfulfilling. He was faced with the fact that night had failed to bring him, well, anything, actually.  
  
Wolfwood started when he shook him roughly. "Wazza matter?" He looked about the darkened room wildly, his hair sticking up at odd angles and the imprint of his hand decorating his face.  
  
"You were snoring."  
  
"Ah, get over it, already," Wolfwood mumbled and flipped onto his side to stare at Midvalley. He grabbed blindly for the edge of the blanket, tugged it up his body and snuggled further into the bed. From the way his eyelids drifted closed and his lips smacked together once or twice, it was clear Wolfwood was already ready to sleep again, but before unconsciousness could claim him, he managed a question.  
  
"I'm not tired yet," was his answer as he watched Wolfwood's eyes close against wakefulness and reality.  
  
The snore seemed louder than before.  
  
Now that was almost right.  
  
This time, when his hand traced the familiar line of shoulder and hip and thigh, he let the contact happen, felt how the muscle and bone somehow composed a man beneath his fingers.  
  
Wolfwood's eyes snapped open again and then followed the hand that moved down the length of his body. "Again?" he asked, configuring his sleep- haggard face into a smirk.  
  
"I told you," he answered, moving the blankets away to expose Wolfwood's body to night and sound, "I'm not tired yet."  
  
When Wolfwood sat up to meet Midvalley, kissing him hard on the mouth, his lips and body said he wasn't tired either. Not anymore. And for a time, it seemed that Wolfwood knew music after all; that he had so much welling up inside him that it could not be contained. It spilled out of him with moans and gasps and short, spasms of breath. He was an instrument in those moments, all strings to be plucked and keys to be pressed, tuned, met with lips and coaxed to make harmony and discord. To make music.  
  
Midvalley was a musician, a lover of night.  
  
Night paled to this.  
  
Night's music was empty after all.  
  
~Owari~ 


End file.
